Storms

on turbulence, conversion moments, and engaging with those who believe differently than you

I’ve always been a storm watcher.

A few years ago I found an old piece of my elementary school art where I declared that I wanted to become a meteorologist, and drew myself wearing a blue parka in the driving rain. I think it’s best for everyone that this vocational ambition never came to pass.

Me, a serious professional, reading from my new book-in-progress at Bread Loaf, instead of reporting the weather

At the time, I was likely fond of the WRAL weatherman, Greg Fishel, whom everyone in eastern North Carolina knows. Across the 80s and 90s, we all listened to Mix 101.5 in our mothers’ minivans - which, in my memory, exclusively played “Rock Steady” by the Whispers - and got the weather report from Greg on the local WRAL news. Fishel shaped our sense of nature via a significant platform, and he was, like a lot of prominent southern figureheads, a climate change denier.

Greg Fishel, doing it the hard way, with ginger ale, decorum, White Out, pencils, and large computers

Fishel left WRAL after several decades due to some personal challenges, but afterwards he wrote a beautiful piece on his eventual conversion from climate skeptic to believer.

I deeply appreciate when people share their conversion moments, because the tone of our current national dialogue makes it nearly impossible for people to change their minds or admit to failures in public - and I think this keeps a lot of critical nuance and change off the table.

Fishel wrote about his conservative ideology blossoming in the 80s, and describes his awakening:

Finally, around 2005, everything came to a head. I woke up one morning convinced of my own confirmation bias. I felt I’d abandoned my work as a scientist to be an ideologue. I had always embraced science. I was a space program junky in the ’60s and early ’70s. I attended Penn State University to get a degree in Meteorology. Why with this one issue was I so willing to abandon science?

Fishel undertook research - combing scientific journals. He realized the following:

My argument that global warming had nothing to do with human activity was, I realized, an argument I would lose in the scientific court of law. In fact, it would probably be thrown out. Perhaps I could debate how much of an effect humans were having, but no effect? I was just plain wrong. It was time I admitted it publicly.

Fishel confronted the power of tribal loyalty and questions still plaguing us in 2024: Why was the country so polarized on issues of science, and why did it appear that religion was at war with science? He was branded a Marxist and a socialist for agreeing with science, which reminds me of my conversation with Republican Congressman Bob Inglis, when I wrote about attitudes toward climate change in the American South for The Guardian.

Inglis explained: “If you want someone to have a conversion moment, it helps for them to hear it in their own language, from someone they trust.” But when Inglis spoke of his own conversion moment in public, he lost political support, and eventually lost his office. Neither the left nor the right received his shift with much grace. Inglis gained, however, the respect of his son, who at one time told him: “Be relevant to my future. Show some courage.”

This courage - well, it feels like it is lacking nearly everywhere now, except for the everyday people fighting for their own safety and survival on the frontlines of any given conflict.

Fishel’s ultimate conclusion is a vow which I believe in, and which has come up in several environmental writing workshops lately. Fishel wrote: I have to risk speaking to folks who don’t agree with me. (I’ll have tips for this type of conversation in a future post.)

Do you make space for others to change their minds? Do you regularly interact with people outside of your belief systems? Have you updated your own internal software?

When I was younger, I relished the feeling of scoring points with rhetoric. But as I got older, I realized it was more important to me to reduce suffering in the world, to focus on outcomes, not personal points.

Speaking with someone with whom you disagree is a form of vulnerability. You have to show up in your own sincere way, ready to both give and receive. But I’ve found that if you have a rational and just point of view, it should hold up to conversation and criticism. To be clear, I’m never advocating for putting yourself in an unsafe position, or both-sides-ing it. I’m saying that if we want more compassionate outcomes in the world, we have to do a better job convincing more people that these outcomes matter.

I’ve long been interested in the idea of speaking with those with whom we disagree - largely because it’s A) necessary for large scale change and compassionate outcomes and B) scares me. It reminds me of my adolescence in South Carolina, where I was often told I was going to hell because I didn’t attend a church. I remember two boys at a field party one night leaning into my face and and telling me evolution wasn’t real. I was infuriated - and I argued back, yelling about the fossil record - and then, overwhelmed, hid in a car with a lukewarm can of Coors Light and cried. (Tip: this is a low efficacy strategy. No hearts and minds were changed that night.)

Lazy magical thinking is often deeply felt - and when faced with it, in yourself or in others, it can remind you of who you are, what you might need to question, what you care about, and what you’re willing to fight for. Encountering it often makes you an activist. Activism - sincere activism - exists to bring about change. But if we’re not actually engaging with those minds we hope to change, we’re performing our beliefs, or bludgeoning people with them. Armchair activism in an echo-chamber.

Watching last night’s storm with my new rescue dog, Winifred (Winnie).

During last night’s storm, I watched two hummingbirds trying - and succeeding - to fly and drink in the wind and rain. It was an easy metaphor of persistence, given the news cycle this week.

A parting quote on storms from James Salter, the writer I read when I need to edit: I like men who have known the best and the worst, whose life has been anything but a smooth trip. Storms have battered them, they have lain, sometimes for months on end, becalmed. There is a residue even if they fail. It has not been all tinkling; there have been grand chords.

If I could say anything to the kind-hearted and justice-driven among us during this current political storm, it would be - reach for the microphone in the town meeting now. Write the op-ed now. Have the hard conversation now. Engage with courage.

xo
MMB

PS: re, storms: TWISTERS is out soon.

PSS: I’ll be sending paid subscribers (of any amount) a workbook on Writing the Sacred in August.